This unique chainsaw is especially good for sawing slender limbs that a traditional chainsaw tends to keep pushing away instead of cutting, a particularly frustrating and dangerous thing when perched on a ladder. It’s small and light, and thanks to the scissors-like gripper one can easily manage fairly large limbs when up on a ladder. We have elms, a cottonwood, a pear tree, a crab apple, and a box elder, and I use mine generally one to two times a year unless wind damage or heavy snowfall breaks some limbs. Manual loppers are longer than the Alligator, so they have better reach. However, they require greater arm spread, too. The advantage of the Alligator is cutting speed, gripping-power, and its light weight and maneuverability.

– Dirk Murcray

This lopper-on-steroids is also great for those of us with a touch of chainsaw-phobia, since the cutting chain is covered by the guards and you don’t have to worry as much about kick-back and such. I had procrastinated for months about cutting a stand of saplings because I dislike chainsaws, but I breezed through them in a few hours with my trusty Alligator — it was even kinda fun! If you dread using a chainsaw, but have to cut branches too big for your lopper, get one of these puppies. Cuts anything up to 4 inches in diameter. I’ve had mine for about 8 months and have since gotten a lot of yard clean-up done that I was putting off (anything too big for a standard lopper). One unforeseen problem: all my friends keep wanting to borrow it…and keep it. Get your own, guys!

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